This article explains how WeBWorK scores students, and how Moodle transforms those WeBWorK scores according to the values set in the related Moodle activity.
In Moodle, WeBWorK courses are integrated as "External Tool" activities; each WeBWorK course and the entirety of its Sets and Quizzes are accessed as one single activity in Moodle. Newly-created Moodle activities will have a default maximum possible score of 100. You can change that to any value you wish when setting up the activity (according to your Course Outline, etc.) Thus, it is possible (and common) for your activity in Moodle to appear to be out of a different maximum value than the maximum score(s) earnable in WeBWorK.
Scoring Behaviour in Moodle's Gradebook
-
The total Student grade is transmitted in real-time from your WeBWorK course to your Moodle course Gradebook. The grade delivered to Moodle represents the current total score of all Homework Sets and Quizzes that your Student has earned so far in that WeBWorK course.
-
Moodle translates that total score as a percentage of the total marks possible in the External Tool activity.
A handy way to understand this is to visualize all the coursework in your WeBWorK course as contributing to an overall percentage of completion. So, if you had two problem sets in WebWorK, each worth 20 points, they would total 40 points, but represent 100% of the work that the Student would need to complete. (This may help to make that default max grade of "100" in the Moodle activity a bit more sensible.)
An example:
-
In WeBWorK, the Student has a combined total score of 40/50 for all the Homework Sets or Gateway Quizzes in the course.
-
In Moodle, the External Tool Activity has a maximum grade set to "100" points.
-
Moodle will grade the Student at 80/100 in the course Gradebook.
This is the same as how Moodle handles the grading of Moodle Quizzes: a 200 question Moodle Quiz (i.e. 1 mark per question) can be set to have a maximum grade of 20, so 25 correct answers out of the 100 questions would earn the Student a mark of 5/20 in the Moodle Gradebook.
How to prevent WeBWorK course scores from reaching Moodle
There may be cases where you just want the Student's activity in WeBWorK to be for practice and to not earn any marks. It's easy to prevent scores from a WeBWorK course from being transmitted to the Gradebook in an associated Moodle course:
- In your Moodle course, with Editing turned on, select "Edit Settings" for the External Tool that connects to your WeBWorK course.
- In the settings, under the "Privacy" section, uncheck the box called "Accept grades from the tool"
This means that none of the grades earned in the WeBWorK course would be transmitted to Moodle.
The idea is that you could set up a "no marks" practice course in WeBWorK and set that up as one activity in Moodle, and then set up a different course for your for-marks practice and testing use.